Stephanopoulos grills McCaskill via Twitter

George Stephanopoulos is grilling Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in a language she can understand -- Tweet.

GS: @clairecmc Hey Senator, George here. On This Week, you signaled support for omnibus (great to have you btw) What changed?18 minutes ago from web in reply to clairecmc

CM: Ultimately just couldn't do it. Not just earmrks tho, also increase in spendng(8%too much)& failure to reconcile $ with stimuls

McCaskill has about 15,000 Twitter followers; Stephanopoulos about 133,000.

[Shameless plug: I Tweet at GlennThrush]

But George's query represents, it seems to me, a logical challenge for a technology that has created a new, novel and closely monitored semi-public space.

McCaskill has generated great publicity with her entertaining and often candid Tweets -- clearly enhancing her political reputation (at least with reporters) through the medium. So doesn't that give reporters the right to use the same space to pose hard-nosed questions?